Nestle Philippines and CEMEX Holdings Philippines have partnered to help waste management in Cebu, the Philippines’ second largest city.

The partnership, forged just before the COVID-19 quarantine was imposed in the country, seeks to  divert plastic waste laminates away from landfills in Cebu province by collecting and co-processing them in cement kilns.

The agreement is one of the initiatives of Nestlé Philippines under a long-term plastic waste collection and recovery program. 

Nestlé Philippines Chairman and CEO Kais Marzouki and CEMEX Holdings Philippines President and CEO Ignacio Mijares Elizondo signed the agreement.

Under the partnership, Nestlé Philippines, through its program partners and authorized transportation provider, will collect post-consumer soft plastics, and pre-process and transport these to the APO Cement Corporation’s plant in Tinaan, Naga City in Cebu.  APO Cement, a subsidiary of CEMEX Holdings Philippines, will in turn co-process the post-consumer soft plastics.

The waste plastic laminates will be sourced from different cities and municipalities in Cebu.

In April 2018, Nestlé announced its global commitment to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. Nestlé’s vision is to achieve a waste-free future with none of its packaging, particularly plastic, going to landfills, the oceans, or as litter.

“We welcome this new agreement and we thank CEMEX Holdings Philippines for making it possible for us to further intensify our actions to address plastic waste. We are happy to extend this initiative beyond the National Capital Region to Cebu in our efforts to reach various areas of the country,” said  Marzouki.

For his part, Elizondo said, “We’re very excited to jumpstart our partnership with Nestlé, the largest food and beverage conglomerate in the world. We recognize and gladly support Nestlé’s commitment to tackling plastic waste. CEMEX and Nestlé have a shared vision to make a significant difference and contribute to the economic, social and environmental growth of the Philippines.  A green environment will always be at the center of CEMEX’s ‘Build A Nation Together’ CSR efforts. Our advocacies are dedicated to uplift lives, communities, and protect the environment.”

CEMEX is a leading global company in the construction materials industry that manufactures and distributes cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates in more than 50 countries. CEMEX operations in the Philippines started 23 years ago in 1997. Today CEMEX Holdings Philippines, with its cement manufacturing subsidiaries Solid Cement and APO Cement and its brands APO, Island and Rizal, is one of the top cement producers in the country based on installed annual capacity.

As a method of waste disposal, co-processing is permitted by local environmental laws and regulations, and is practiced in various countries. In the Philippines, cement kiln co-processing is preferable to landfilling and physical treatment, since energy and minerals from waste are almost completely used up.

In 2018 CEMEX won its second Department of Environment and Natural Resources - Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) Award for its waste management solutions and for the Tamang Segregasyon Para Sa Kalikasan program services that are being offered to communities across the CALABARZON region. “Even as we are engaged in finding new packaging solutions, we recognize the urgent need to divert waste, especially plastics, from landfills, waterways and oceans.  Thus we at Nestlé Philippines are actively pursuing our partnership with CEMEX and other stakeholders who share our journey toward a waste-free future,” said Marzouki.